2012 — 23 April: Monday
One starts to wonder — as one watches the morning rain pouring down while one sups one's newly-poured morning cuppa — just when the chaps whose job it is to pronounce that "We need the rain" hand over to the chaps whose job it is to pronounce that "We've had too much of the wrong sort of rain".
As a kid, I was taught "Rain before seven, fine before eleven".1 I wonder if the weather system knows that? Meanwhile, guvmint departments are being asked to set aside 5% of their budgets as "rainy day" funds. Sweet.
Following a tip...
... from a chum who also enjoys the odd spot of Miles Davis and such-like stuff, and having very much enjoyed the Marcus Miller album that reworks the "Tutu" album I snaffled yesterday evening, I've just downloaded, and am now listening to another 'sort of' reworking, this time by a variety of musicians:
Since the Amazon page said the (two) CDs were "usually dispatched within 1 to 2 months" whereas the MP3 files were immediately available to download, I coughed up the extra couple of quid for the latter. Child of impulse, me; child of impulse.
I have (amply, in my opinion) repaid my informant by asking him if he knows what Miles Davis replied when asked "How do you get an embouchure like that?"2 It occurs to me that, although I first heard the word "embouchure" courtesy of the Flanders & Swann song about a French Horn, it was not until quite some time later that I actually discovered its meaning. [Pause] The music is almost ridiculously good.
Having just reluctantly condemned...
... multiple packs of rice that were all (a minimum of) three years past their "Best Before" dates — Domestic God? Me? Hardly! — to an unmarked grave in an anonymous landfill in due course, I shall settle instead for adding some prawns into my lunchtime chicken saag masala, and accompany the whole glorious mess with a nice honey sandwich. Yum!
The rain, meanwhile, continues to do its dampening thing. It's 13:24 and, despite the weather, I was vaguely thinking of nipping over to the care-home, though there's been nothing from them yet to suggest it's once again open for business, as it were. They'd faithfully promised to use email instead of phoning me at ungodly hours in the morning next time.
Given the lousy...
... weather, and the current forecast for more of the same on Wednesday, the Terrible Trio will be sneaking off for a little walk tomorrow — and lunch at a nameless Pub — after two-thirds of us have spent the earlier part of the morning trying to sort out Our Mutual Friend's ability to use email on his newly-acquired Android Tablet PC. What could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile, to disperse any gloom, Mr Postie has very obligingly dropped off the two seasons that NBC made of "Life" for me to try...
The fact that it co-stars the beautiful Sarah Shahi ("Carmen" from "The 'L' Word") is just extra gravy on the cake, or whatever the expression is.
After "tea"...
... and while listening — yet again — to the 1990 Cole Porter tribute CD ("Red, Hot + Blue")
I'm struck not only by Porter's genius, but by the fact that each artist is somehow uniquely suited to the track they perform. Amazing. I stand by the opinion I expressed a while ago after buying one of my first books in the aftermath of Christa's final illness.